MGMT returns to pop with new twists on 'Little Dark Age'

MGMT’s “Little Dark Age” (Columbia) is being hyped as a “return to form,” but that’s misleading. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden never aimed to become pop stars, though for a brief moment they became ones anyway.

While attending college in Connecticut in the early 2000s, they bonded over their fondness for sarcasm and synthesizers. Signed to a major-label deal as MGMT, the duo crafted a debut album, “Oracular Spectacular,” that boasted a handful of surprising electro-pop hits: “Time to Pretend,” “Electric Feel,” “Kids.” Suddenly MGMT was a festival act with a million-plus-selling album.

Reluctant pop stars at best, Goldwasser and VanWyngarden chased a darker, more abstract path on two subsequent releases, which met increasingly lackluster fates on the charts. “Little Dark Age” does return to some of the “form” of “Oracular Spectacular” with its greater pop accessibility, but it also embraces a less obvious and more intriguing path on several songs.

There are a few clunkers. The opening “She Works Out too Much,” framed as a dialogue between the unmotivated narrator and his more fitness-obsessed girlfriend, comes off as the kind of smart-aleck condescension they should have left behind in their freshman dorm room. “TSLAMP” skewers kids these days for — wait for it — spending too much time on their smartphones. You’d expect these guys to be a few steps beyond that by now, but at least “TSLAMP” boasts a terrific, hooky arrangement — a light, airy pop tune riding a rippling wave of hand percussion.

The hooks elsewhere approach the standard set by “Oracular”: the deceptive cheeriness of the sociopathic “When I Die”; the wobbly gothic singalong title track; the unabashed anthemic cheesiness of “Me and Michael,” in which the ambiguity of the relationship described in the lyrics undercuts the cliched arrangement.

There’s something else: an air of empathy and warmth that once seemed of little interest to Goldwasser and VanWyngarden. “James” builds an ode to friendship on waves of wordless backing vocals and consoling keyboards. The wistful psychedelic ballad “When You’re Small” evokes another of co-producer Dave Fridmann’s associates, the Flaming Lips, in the way it turns surrealism into an ode to everyday struggle.

The album lands with deceptive gentleness on the final song, “Hand it Over,” in which the dreamy vocals and a distant answering choir describe a transaction that’s more like a stickup. It could apply to any number of scenarios: the band’s art-vs.-commerce relationship with the music industry, a certain political process gone haywire or something even more sinister and disorienting. “If everyone’s confused, which door do we open?” MGMT asks. That’s called a cliffhanger ending, and the music is strong enough to make worthwhile the wait to see how it turns out.